A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

562. President Johnson.—Andrew Johnson,[^[262]] a Democrat from Tennessee, was the only Southern senator who refused to resign his place when, in 1861, the other senators withdrew from Congress. Partly because he was such a stanch Unionist, and partly because the Republicans desired to develop a Union sentiment in the South, he was elected as Vice President on the ticket with Lincoln, in 1864, and in consequence became President on the death of the latter.

563. Lincoln’s Reconstruction Policy.—Lincoln, with his customary foresight, some time before the end of the war, had set forth his ideas on the policy of the reconstruction of the seceded states. He expressed the opinion, in an address, that the question whether the “seceded states,” so-called, were in the Union or out of it, was “a mere pernicious abstraction”; that “they were out of their proper practical relation with the Union,” and that “the sole object of those in authority should be again to get them into that proper practical relation.” With the exception of certain classes, he had previously by proclamation offered pardon to all persons who should take the oath to support the Constitution and the laws, and he had promised that as soon as one-tenth of the voters in any state (according to the registration of 1860) should take this oath and establish a government of republican form, the Federal authorities would recognize it as a legal state government. Arkansas and Louisiana had been reorganized on this basis, though the reorganization proved, in the end, unsuccessful, owing to the fact that Congress refused to recognize the governments thus set up.

Andrew Johnson.

564. Johnson’s Policy of Reconstruction.—The accession of Johnson somewhat modified this policy, and this modification has generally been regarded as calamitous to the South. But it should be said that Johnson’s policy was not so different in essentials from that of Lincoln as it was in method and spirit. Johnson was utterly lacking in the tact that is always requisite to the successful leadership of men, and consequently he was soon at odds with Congress. It should also be noted that Congress fell under the influence of its radical members, especially Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, and became more extreme in its methods as soon as the staying and guiding hand of Lincoln was removed.

565. Difficult Questions.—Though the war was virtually over when Johnson came into authority as President, he found many difficult questions to consider and decide. One of the first was to determine what should be done with the political leaders of the Confederacy. In the mountainous region of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, where Johnson had lived, the Union sentiment was so strong that the conflict between the Unionists and Confederates was greatly embittered. Johnson now showed much of this spirit of bitterness. In striking contrast with Lincoln, he took the position that the leaders of the Confederacy should be put to death. Apparently with this purpose in view, he offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for the capture of Jefferson Davis, and smaller sums for the capture of other Confederate leaders. After a long and difficult pursuit, Davis was captured in Georgia by two troops of General Wilson’s cavalry, in May, 1865. He was sent to Fortress Monroe, where he was kept a prisoner for two years. As other members of the Confederate government were taken, they were sent to various forts to await the action of Congress. The influence of Seward in favor of a mild policy, and the doubtful issue of the complicated constitutional cases that would have come before the courts, finally brought it to pass that no Confederate leader was tried for his life. This treatment of the vanquished contrasts favorably with the methods pursued at the end of the Revolutionary War in dealing with the Tories.

566. Difficulties of Reconstruction.—A far more difficult question to be determined was that of the judicious reëstablishment of government in the seceded states. This difficulty was partly the inevitable consequence of a great civil war,[^[263]] and partly the result of the peculiar circumstances in which the North and the South were now placed. The white men of the South had been at war against the Union, and the slaves had been set free. Should the former slave owners at once be allowed to vote? Should the negroes be given a vote? These were questions of the utmost importance, because the emancipation of slaves, adopted as a military measure, carried with it no authority to prevent the reënslaving of negroes after the war was over (§ [546]). It was generally felt in the North that if the old master should be allowed to vote and the freedman should not be given that privilege, there would be no assurance that slavery in one form or another would not be reëstablished. The South, on the other hand, believed that to give the suffrage to unqualified masses of blacks would be unnecessary and intolerable. It seemed to be impossible to reconcile the two views on this question, and consequently the course to be taken was naturally determined by the party in power. Moreover, the leading minds of the Republican party believed that the negro could be thoroughly protected only by constitutional amendments which would make it impossible for the united Democrats of the North and the South to alter whatever measures in his behalf had been taken by Congress.

567. Differences between President and Congress.—While a majority of the people of the North were determined to prevent the possibility of any form of domination over the negroes, the President, as a Southern Democrat, cared less for the freedom of negroes than he did for the right of the white men in the individual Southern states to settle their own affairs. Johnson, therefore, was determined that the Confederate states should come back into the Union under the leadership of their white voters. This would mean, of course, the leadership of those who had recently been at war against the Union, and to such a result the Republican members of Congress were strongly opposed.

568. Provisional Governors.—The President began his policy by the appointment of a provisional governor for each of the seceded states. This governor called conventions whose members were to be elected by such of the former voters as should take the oath of loyalty contained in the Proclamation of Amnesty. The conventions showed their loyalty to the Union by repealing the Ordinances of Secession, by voting that no debt should ever be paid that had been incurred by the Confederacy, and by ratifying the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited slavery forever in the country (§ [546]). But, on the other hand, some of them also passed laws to force the freedmen to work, under penalty of imprisonment as vagrants. To the people of the North this unfortunately looked like an attempt to set up slavery under another form. It was probably not so intended, but showed at least great indiscretion.

569. Refusal of Admission to Congress.—When Congress met in December, 1865, the members refused to admit the representatives that had been sent from the seceded states. They asserted, moreover, that the seceded states were not in the Union and must be readmitted before their acts could have authority, and before they could have representation in Congress. Tennessee was readmitted, and representatives from this state were received in Congress in 1866, but no other representatives from seceded states were received until nearly two years later. The President argued that Congress had no more right to keep a state out of Congress than a state had to secede, and in this position he was generally supported by the Northern Democrats.